A great deal of publicity was given in the press TV and radio recently about the London Summit on Family Planning and in particular about the £500million that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is apparently going to give to provide contraception to the developing countries.
Much doubt has been raised about this policy from many quarters but one significant point to note is the way in which the word “contraception” is used as if synonymous with “family planning”.
This is nothing new; below is an article from ALDU newsletter 51 published in Autumn 1991 which itself points out that contraception and family planning are not synonymous and that many so called contraceptives are in fact abortifacient. Melinda Gates made much of the fact that she is a Catholic and that she was acting against her church which, she believes, is out of touch. The Catholic Church does, however, believe in family planning and has another name for it, ‘responsible parenthood’. To help its people to exercise this responsibility, the Catholic Church promotes Natural Family Planning which:
- is effective;
- fulfills the first law of medicine - do no harm - whereas contraceptives all have harmful side effects;
- is a good in itself, as men and women learn about how their bodies work and so are the first to know if anything is wrong with them;
- is cheap, with no great profits going to global pharmaceutical companies;
- empowers people by giving them knowledge about themselves - contraceptives do not educate;
- recognises that the ecology of our bodies is fragile and needs natural, gentle treatment not the sledgehammer of high technology and devices.
“You have to educate a woman about her contraceptive choices, says Mrs Gates. One of the choices that women (and men) have, the only one that makes sense, is to reject chemical and technological interference with their bodies and to embrace the truth about themselves.
Number 51 - Autumn 1991
Population control
Following the publication of our Summer 1991 Newsletter we received a letter from a member of our Association objecting to our article on population control. "There is nothing in the four Aims of our Association about opposing contraception," wrote this member, "and since I do not oppose contraception I object to the first 11/2 pages of Newsletter number 50."
Now it is perfectly true that our Association, in its efforts to expose the evil of, and resist the injustice of, abortion, has never had in the past, and does not have now, an attitude towards the controversial subject of contraception. The Association is solely concerned with resisting unjust attacks on small human beings, once they exist, and it has always been careful not to concern itself with the moral question of contraception. Accordingly, the article to which our member objected contained no reference to contraception, nor was any such reference implied in it: the word did indeed appear once in the article, but only in its introductory paragraph where we were quoting a pamphlet put out by one of the organisations we were writing about.
Our member's objection to our article does, however, highlight a very important matter. We refer to the way in which certain phrases and certain words have been appropriated (and misappropriated) by the abortion lobby and given new and misleading meanings. For example, "family planning" and "contraception" are —not, in fact, synonymous, yet in the minds of many people they are one and the same thing.
The planning, by a married couple, of the number of children which they hope to have and the intervals between the arrival of each child is a perfectly acceptable use of human intelligence. But the expression "family planning", when used by the abortion lobby, implies not only contraception but also abortion and sterilisation. Similarly, the words "population control" imply compulsion - whether social, economic or even physical - to force people to have (or, much more likely, not to have) children as dictated by an outside authority, usually the State.
If all this seems far-fetched one need look no further than our own country to see how social factors are influencing child-bearing. To have more than two or three children is considered by many people today as irresponsible. Some people go so far as to consider it disgusting. In less than thirty years large numbers of people have ceased to view children as a blessing and have come to view them as an inconvenience. The United Kingdom birthrate, like that of nearly all Western European countries, has now fallen to well below replacement level.
Economic pressures are also discouraging child bearing. Here in the UK, for example, child tax allowance has been abolished. The separate taxation of husband and wife has advantages, for instance, for two-income families, but the personal tax relief is of little use to a wife who is at home fulfilling the all-important duty of looking after her children. In other countries, economic pressures are even greater, and very often loans and grants made to developing countries by developed countries and their agencies are dependent upon the developing countries submitting to "population control" policies imposed upon them. This is a new form of imperialism, and a particularly unattractive one.
It is, of course, individuals rather than Governments which suffer from "population control" policies. In Communist China, for example, a couple which dares to have a second child without State approval may be fined a sum equivalent to 300 times a typical monthly salary. Not only in China but in other countries too social welfare benefits may be lost if a woman gives life to more than the permitted number of children.
The appalling compulsion, involving forced abortion and forced sterilisation, used by the Chinese authorities on the unfortunate Chinese people, is well known and documented. It is true that China is a country with a very large population, but it covers a huge area and its population density is by no means one of the highest in the world. Its population density is, in fact, considerably less than half that of the United Kingdom, but "population control" policies are nonetheless applied with extreme ruthlessness, and of course constitute a shocking infringement of ordinary human rights, going far beyond the limits of what a Government may properly and legitimately impose upon its subjects.
The compulsion involved in "population control" is unjust enough in itself, but it also leads straight to the killing of children by abortion, and that is why our Association is so concerned. Every deliberate killing of an unborn baby is an example of extreme injustice. Whatever else one may be prepared to accept in the name of democracy or civilisation, and whatever other restraints and restrictions upon personal liberty one may accept for the smoother and better running of society in general, no civilized person should accept a deliberately-inflicted and grave injustice, and lawyers (who above all other people should be concerned with issues of justice) should be in the forefront of the resistance to it.
This article began with, and arose out of, a mention of the word "contraception". We end it by saying that that word should be looked at with very great wariness and care, especially when it is being used by the Family Planners or in a Family Planning/Population Control context. Why? Because there are a number of procedures which are described as "contraceptive" but which are in fact abortifacient. Notwithstanding the fact that some knowledgeable people consider that the intra-uterine device ('IUD') operates in a manner to prevent fertilisation occurring, it is nevertheless generally accepted that it operates partly if not entirely, often if not always, as an abortifacient. There is more than one "morning-after pill", but although they are often described and thought of as operating as a contraceptive, they are obviously abortifacient in their effects, ensuring (as they do) that any child who may have been conceived shall be killed.
We are not suggesting that Humpty Dumpty was the first of the Population Controllers, but we do recall plainly that he once said, in a rather scornful tone,
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, - neither more nor less."
